Not long after announcing a $15 million investment in Western Canada, Cisco Systems opened the doors to a new lab featuring Cisco’s hyperconverged infrastructure solution, Hyperflex, located at PCM Canada’s head office in Edmonton.
The Canadian Cisco Gold Partner represents the increasing popularity of consolidated data centres, and Cisco’s ongoing efforts to get the Canadian midmarket to invest in Hyperflex, according to Al Amiri, regional vice-president of Western Canada’s public sector for Cisco.
“Two or three years ago, we saw a handful of customers discussing hyperconverged. But today we’re seeing full-blown adoption of the technology,” he told CDN after a launch event at the lab. “It’s become a standard among every possible type of customer, regardless of size, whether they’re public or private, and regardless of their cloud consumption.”
IDC says sales of hyperconverged systems grew 57.2 per cent year-over-year during the fourth quarter of 2018, generating $1.9 billion in revenue and amounting to 46.5 per cent of the total converged systems market. While Dell and Nutanix battle it out at the top for market share, Cisco is leaning on its own shift over to services and heightened focus on security to differentiate itself in the growing market. PCM Canada is on the same page, said Amiri, and described the Canadian solution provider as one of Cisco’s most trusted partners in Canada.
Hyperflex scores a 4.2 on Gartner Peer Insights, with most reviews – written largely by people in the midmarket – mentioning ease of use and swift Cisco support when the occasional issue does arise.
Shawn Ambrose, vice-president of field sales, solutions and business development at PCM Canada, said the firm wants clients to see how the Hyperflex servers work and automate processes, not just read a spec sheet.
“The lab will be open to all of our clients to run limited ‘Proof of Value’ engagements when considering the move to Cisco HyperFlex,” Ambrose explained in a press release.
Cisco has one other Hyperflex lab in Toronto, bringing the total across Canada to two.
